You Don’t Know Me

Title: You Don’t Know Me

Series: X Generation Book 1

Author: Brad Magnarella

Published: November 7, 2014 by Brad Magnarella

Price: $2.99 on Kindle

☆☆☆☆/5

Blurb: In the fall of 1984, Cold War tensions between Washington and Moscow are close to breaking.

But in sleepy Gainesville, Florida, fourteen-year-old Janis Graystone is mainly worried about starting high school, earning a spot on the varsity soccer team, and keeping her older sister from running her life. And then there are her paranormal experiences. Experiences where she awakens in her backyard — out of her body — with the disturbing sense that someone is watching her.

For Scott Spruel, the start of high school means the chance to start over. And he’s willing to ditch everything — computer hacking, Dungeons & Dragons marathons, even his comic book collection (well, except for his X-Men) — if it means getting closer to Janis, the secret love of his life. But what about the eerie delay on his telephone, a delay he senses through powers he is only beginning to understand?

As clocks tick down, Janis and Scott will need the other’s help. But first they’ll have to find one another and that means traversing Thirteenth Street High’s caste system, which can be as brutal as it is unforgiving…

Review: I honestly didn’t think that I would enjoy this book as much as I did. Starting it, it felt a little slow and I didn’t like the stalker vibe I had from Scott. It felt like a slice-of-life with just the tiniest hint of powers.

Another thing that I wasn’t all that interested in was the brief history lessons. I didn’t do so well in my history classes in high school or college, so being sent back there wasn’t all that fun.

Somewhere along the line though, and I don’t know where, I was getting really engaged with the story. I was invested and getting lost in it, thinking about it when I had to set it down. I wanted to know what was going to happen next and the suspense kicked up for me.

This actually reminded me of Stranger Things. Taking place in the eighties, the slow build of the mystery. I’m glad that I chose to keep going with this one, that it picked up and grabbed a hold of me before I started feeling like I was forcing myself to keep reading.

The cover doesn’t really stand out as an amazing eye-catcher and if I hadn’t been looking for any title or series that began with the letter X to put into my book journal, I’m not sure that I would have picked this up by myself. Which I would have ended up missing out on this, so another case of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover.’

I did feel like Janis might have needed a little more shock and awe when it came to really discovering what she could do, her reaction felt a little tame.

All-in-all, I enjoyed myself and would actually come back for a re-read down the road. A good read for teenagers and adults alike and I’m actually going to continue on in the series. Half because I want to find out what’s going on and half because I have three pages in the X column that I need to fill up.

Thank you for reading my review.